1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is data processing, or, more specifically, methods, apparatus, and products for dynamically managing power consumption of a computer.
2. Description of Related Art
The development of the EDVAC computer system of 1948 is often cited as the beginning of the computer era. Since that time, computer systems have evolved into extremely complicated devices. Today's computers are much more sophisticated than early systems such as the EDVAC. Computer systems typically include a combination of hardware and software components, application programs, operating systems, processors, buses, memory, input/output devices, and so on. As advances in semiconductor processing and computer architecture push the performance of the computer higher and higher, more sophisticated computer software has evolved to take advantage of the higher performance of the hardware, resulting in computer systems today that are much more powerful than just a few years ago.
As computer software advances, hardware requirements for executing such computer software also advance. Increased hardware requirements typically include increased power consumption in computer systems. Consider computer gaming software as one example type of computer software for which hardware requirements and associated power consumption have increased greatly in the recent past. High power consuming graphics adapters capable of meeting graphics processing requirements of computer gaming software continue to consume larger amounts of power than an integrated graphics adapter, or other low-power graphics adapter, even when the computer system is not executing graphics-intensive computer gaming software. Such power consumption during idle, or nearly idle, periods of time, is inefficient and wasteful when alternative, low-power consuming graphic adapters, such as an integrated graphics adapter of a computer motherboard are available in most, if not all, computer systems.